Stage presence is an ineffable quality. As soon as Barbara Matijevic enters the space you know she has it and that you are going to be in safe hands. The Basement is bright but warmly lit, with a white background wall. The piece has started before this defining moment, with a MacBook on a stand […]
Writings
Cut to the Chase: Tony Teardrop
March 25th, 2013 by Christopher MaddenThe Bombed-Out Church is a Liverpool icon. Tourists love it as a photogenic ruin. Locals flock to it for cultural events programmed by the redoubtable Urban Strawberry Lunch. Everyone loves a ruin. For Tony Teardrop, Cut to the Chase draws upon the Church’s reputation as a hangout for some of the city’s homeless. It’s […]
Harry Giles: Class Act
March 21st, 2013 by Tara BolandHarry Giles is an emerging performance artist whose work covers poetry, live art and performance, and whose pieces often make direct and specific social comment and analysis. Describing himself on his website as a performance maker whose work falls somewhere under the ever expanding umbrella of live art, Giles states that he ‘takes a subject […]
Diederik Peeters: Red Herring
March 21st, 2013 by Dorothy Max PriorThe show starts – or does it? A figure with a sheet of white paper for a face appears from the very back of the deep performance space, walking slowly, an animated Magritte painting. He’s here to open the show; he would sing, but… But no, that was a red herring; in a flash the […]
David Rosenberg & Glen Neath: Ring
March 17th, 2013 by Tara BolandDavid Rosenberg’s work with Shunt has often played with the role of the audience – putting audiences in uncomfortable situations, forcing them to make decisions, pushing them into voyeuristic viewings of intimate situations. Ring sees audiences placed right at the centre of the action, and as a ‘performance’ delivered entirely in complete darkness it certainly […]